At Last! News (sort of) on a "new" General Discussion / RA Forum

mmmmm ham

They may be saying they are contemplating a RA like forum to settle everyone down, especially the more "valuable" members of this community who they feel they need to make their "thing" a success, but I'm with Laval and the others. I have to see it to believe it. And even if I do see it, it will be nothing like the open "Village Green" format we have here. It will be tightly policed and devoid of any character, with the same self appointed forum cops that seem to have taken office in SL Answers. I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in anyting they offer up anymore.

Well if there's gonna be ham, I'll be there!

Blue's office hours are today 4-5PM SLT. If you're into pointless, futile displays.

It's very simple.

If there's a general discussion area, use it and be constructive and positive so it stays.

If there isn't one, don't waste time in an area where you can't talk.



My participation will be determined by what they do. It's in their hands now. I'm not going to beg or plead, or raise my voice. That's crazy, it sets up the wrong dynamic. I'm a customer.

There are other platforms that have *no problem* with a general discussion area. I'll be on those in any case, and we shall see if I'm on one here.

I feel like a nitwit saying this, but it is possible that the Lindens have no idea what's going to happen on Feb 9, aside from turning off these forums?

It seems impossible, but it would explain why details are not forthcoming.

Ding Ding Ding..............We have a winner!

It doesn't seem impossible, it's Most Predictable. (tm)

fixed it for you, you obviously weren't thinking straight when you typed the original

Well aside from the forum closing - what will happen? I missed the memo

You guys are so funny - but I still feel like a nitwit - there is something that doesn't add up.

If only there were some way to grab M and his top deputies and somehow humanely force them to think about this for a minute. Just THINK. Think it through.









This, too.



It is absolutely inexplicable that the LL leadership can't seem to see how contradictory their goals are.

I believe the error in thinking stems from Kingdon's own mindset: when he's forced to spend time in SL (a duty he took on when he accepted the job), he's probably bored out of his skull. It is natural that his mind would turn to Making This Time Less Of A Waste---to finding a way for people to check their stocks in SL, Twitter in SL, update their Facebook page while in SL, etc.

The error in thinking stems from the concept that No Normal Person Would Ever Want To Do Anything Here Besides Accomplish Their Normal Daily Tasks--But in 3D. "SL instead of a Blackberry or iPhone" is the mantra.

And anyone who'd WILLINGLY spend more than five minutes in SL---who is, as you say, passionate about it---is Not Normal. And therefore such persons are NOT to be depended upon for LL's revenue stream. And NOT to be encouraged in any way--meaning, NO general discussion forum to be available...perhaps that will drive away these Undesirable Customers!, the thinking apparently goes.

Quite frankly, this is a nutty way of thinking.

It's nutty because "let SL be the new iPhone" makes zero sense. The essence of the success of iPhone, Blackberry, etc---and more relevantly, the software on which they run---is portability.

The essence of SL is NOT portability.

Sure, in some future year it may become possible to experience a 3D world from a device we can hold in our hands...but if LL has gone bankrupt in the meantime, then the strategy of promoting SL as a better version of an iPhone will have been proved to be, shall we say, somewhat unsuccessful.

The current leadership's way of thinking is also nutty because they are choosing to forego profits.

They are dismissing passionate customers---those who make a forum their 'home' by logging on every day and talking about general topics as well as SL-specific ones---as being undesirable. They don't consider our money to be valuable enough to them to make it worth their while to provide good customer service.

But they have no alternative source of income.

Corporations? The 'advertising' angle has already been exploded; they're not going to sell many more islands. The lessons of the ghost islands are too well known. The 'virtual meetings' dream has also been exposed as ludicrous (and until the US$10 full-graphics-capability computer comes on the market, it will remain ludicrous).

What's left? Oh, the Facebook people.

As you wrote, Nika (and I couldn't put it better), "New residents brought in through social network sites are RL-oriented, and will drift away as soon as the next kewl 2D networking dingie appears for their smartphones."



Which I suppose brings us back to the conspiracy theories that Kingdon was hired for the express purpose of bringing down the value of Linden Lab (to create a bargain price for a takeover), or to send it into bankruptcy so that Philip's non-compete clause would be invalidated.

It's difficult to understand, otherwise, how the current direction of the company could remain so self-destructive.

It is strange. I just asked the same question on the blahhhhggg. First the rush AU out to quell the rebellion resulting from Wally's Identity screed, then the all of a sudden decide to close a forum that they have said they were going to close for over a year, without having any firm replacement ready to go. Methinks something is fishy in Frisco.

Anyone want to place wagers on how long that will last once M finds out he is actually *gasp* answering questions?

It's just like the Corporate dolts I see when I go to a baseball game. They are sitting down in the good seats, with their WSJ's, and their briefcases paying no mind to the game. I always snicker when one of them gets plonked by a foul ball because they aren't paying arrention to the game.

Well Scylla, here's some hope for you, from 3Ring's locked thread:

Yeah . . . that's vaguely hopeful sounding, isn't it. Vaguely . . .

Laval, you are right, that place is cack. I spent a little while there today and it's awful. The interface is about as elegant as a 1972 AMC Pacer, it's slow, and difficult to follw. I'm glad the thread was locked, now I can go back to ignoring it.

Two scenarios.

1) LL open a General Discussion forum on AU. This way the word gets spread about SL to avatars in other worlds who may then come to SL after getting to know us on a more personal level. Could be good as the regulars here are pretty passionate advocates of SL, even if less so about LL as a company sometimes.

2) Or, LL port the "Just Ignore And Let This Die" to the new blogorums in its entirety, and let that thread run on as the place to talk about anything. There is a wealth of information in that thread, but more importantly I think its a narrative of the history of SL told by the residents themselves. IMO history should not be consigned to history, if you get what I mean.

if 1) then if it was me, I would port JIALTD to AU.

LL can mod the hell out of SL Answers as they should, but with a light hand they could let JIALTD continue to tell the story of SL through the words of its people. And being one thread only LL can bury it from public view, and so what if they do really. It will be there as it always has been for those who came after its dawn.

There for the storytellers to continue to tell the story of SL in all its rich diversity through their own words. There also for the listeners who come, as they do now and can continue as they always have, to sit quietly, lurk even, never saying much hardly ever; storytellers and listeners, learning and sharing, oftentimes with good humor and happiness, sometimes with pain and tears, together as the story unfolds.


There is a 3rd scenario but that would be dumb, wilfully ignorant even. Heartbreakingly so, in my opinion.

I tend to feel that way too. However, it takes all kinds to make a world and we do, arguably, need CEO types .

The problem arises when such a type can't fathom that anyone could see things differently than he does.

If a CEO can't imagine that someone could work hard and enjoy an hour of entertainment of an evening---or even more---then they will treat with contempt the idea that a virtual world ISN'T, fundamentally and basically, a place to check your stocks.

Such a CEO would over-direct resources to 'let's take some of iPhone's business, it's the wave of the future!'-type projects---to the detriment of the financial health of their company.

/me gives Scylla another cookie.

This will be the one they choose.

I think there is truth in this. LL's obsession with taking SL into the realm of social networking sites, despite it's shortcomings in that arena. Management doesn't care how iadequate it may be, they just see that as the big thing right now, and they have to be a part of it, regardless of what effect it may have on the current user base. LL is like a Canal Street knockoff store. They will try to copy the latest trend, but do it cheaply and with little quality.

SL would just be the next piece of candy... we'd last 5 seconds.



Chasing the fad and short term profits are fairly normal mistakes with new management in companies, and even old management when there's a 'shiny' out there...

The problem we're facing is pretty routine...

Facebook is the shiny... SL has moved beyond hype stage, the original visionary is gone, and the new people are not insiders - they don't 'get it' so they are chasing a shiny, not seeing a short term gain as the short term thing it is...

I saw a lot of this sort of thing during the dot-com era. And its still a big issue for tech companies as they hire management that does not 'get it' with all these 'tech geeks' and 'new culture' people.

Successful good ideas are very often killed by people who get a hold of them without understanding what they really mean.

Back in 1999 when Metacreations announced it was starting a bold new project to make an app for viewing products in web-browers in 3D... I remember seeing the same kinds of issues and conversations we're seeing here now in these forums.

By end of year, Metacreations had sold off Bryce and Poser, and almost before copies of Carrara had shipped to early order customers - canceled any further support or development for the application.

Carrara at the time had been visionary - intended as a low-cost replacement for apps like 3DS Max. Canceling the project before it had even shipped, shipping the 'what we have so far' but claiming it was version 1, and then letting the public know after people had bought that that the item was cancelled... killed that goal straight out.

Metacreations went on to divest itself of every single product it owned, and focus solely on the app to make all web-browser images of the future be in 3D became their sole focus, pushed as the future of e-commerce that would lead them to become the next Microsoft...

On their forums and external stock forums lots of 'new users' started posting customer comments about how grand and bold of a vision this was, and how Poser was a dead idea anyway, and 3D applications not tied directly to e-commerce had no future...

Meanwhile actual users of Poser and Bryce were holding mock funerals, and wondering what would happen when time got too far away from the current versions...

...


Anyone here who hasn't been a Daz/Poser user for at least a decade ever even heard of Metacreations?

That grand idea didn't get too far... I think there are some 3D image formats for e-commerce out there, but they're not widely used, and I don't even think they came out of Metacreations... I think somebody else already had such an app when they started. They tried to leap a wave that was already in progress and claim it for themselves...



...

Which is kind of what I think LL's is trying to do... I suspect somebody over there thinks they can actually beat Twitter and Facebook, and don't realize that in a year or so, the 'fad of the month' crowd won't even be on those kinds of media anymore anyway...

I suspect that at present upper management at LLs views SL as nothing more than a collection of people to mine for addition into the real product: Avatars United...
- Eventually they might even decide to announce something like that, and expect us all to cheer them as they 'help us' transition to the new 'improved' way to integrate avatars into our social networks...


SL was a fad... back in 2006. That's past us now. They need to realize it, solidify their core user base, and manage those people in such a way that they can comfortably grow at a reasonable pace...

- But that's not chasing a shiny...


Meanwhile back in Poser land... After the Metacreations suicide... Poser and Bryce and Carrara lingered for a while... and each was eventually bought up by other companies. Bryce and Carrara ended up with Corel and then Adobe I think... for some years... where they were essentially buried... And in the end they were bought by Daz... which now competes with Poser's present day owners in a strange sort of symbiotic / parasitic relationship...

- But who's going to buy Second Life after M. Linden kills it? And will they bury it for a decade before somebody else manages to get a hold of it? If so... will there be any point in returning to it after all of that?

From today's San Francisco Chronicle:

.............................................................
Blogging is for old people, Pew report finds

Benny Evangelista, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, February 3, 2010

(02-03) 13:00 PST -- Teenagers and young adults spent less time blogging during the past three years as social networks like Facebook became more popular, according to a Pew Research Center study released Wednesday.
Still, one social network, Twitter, has failed to catch on with the vast majority of younger teenagers, according to the Pew study of social media and mobile Internet use among teens and young adults.

The study conducted by the Washington, D.C., nonprofit think tank was designed to gauge the online habits of America's "millennial generation," a demographic group that is considered a bellwether of the nation's future technology trends.
The results indicate blogging has become so 2006, when 28 percent of the two groups studied, teens 12 to 17 and young adults 18 to 29, actively blogged.
By the fall of 2009, that percentage dropped off to only 14 percent of teens and 15 percent of young adults as blogging "lost its luster for many young users," said Amanda Lenhart, one of the report's authors.

.................................
So much for the theory that the LL "Blog" is New and Now and An Irresistibly Attractive Concept! We MUST throw all resources behind it because Blogging is the FUTURE of this business!!



AND (back to the SFC article) :

..................................
Twitter usage.... Only 8 percent of online teens said they had ever used the San Francisco microblogging service, a result that reflects previous research that indicated Twitter - unlike other online technologies - is not being driven by younger audiences.
...................................

So, this research, from a very reputable firm, appeared in, among other places, the San Francisco newspaper of record.

I'm curious as to how the LL leadership dealt with it. It would be rude to assume that they put their hands over their ears and screamed "Lalalalalalalalala!!!!"

But one can't help picturing it.



(Your history of Megacreations was chilling. Absolutely chilling. We know that few people pay attention to the lessons of history. It would be nice to think that the LL leadership is an exception to that rule, but...)